Kaiser Permanente and de Beaumont Foundation Work to Create Vibrant, Healthy Communities

Kaiser Permanente at the Housing Announcement Press Conference on May 18, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Kaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest integrated health system, has joined forces with the de Beaumont Foundation, a leader in public health philanthropy, to help U.S. cities thrive through the CityHealth initiative.

Created by the de Beaumont Foundation to promote practices that make cities healthier, CityHealth tracks and reports on proven policies, and works with cities to advance policies that achieve community health priorities. Through this new relationship, Kaiser Permanente will leverage its deep expertise in health policy, government relations, and community-based prevention to accelerate cities’ efforts to improve people’s health and quality of life.

CityHealth promotes nine evidence-based policies addressing issues that have a major effect on health, such as affordable housing, education and clean air. The first steps of this joint effort will be to identify municipal leaders’ community health policy priorities, and to assess the support they may need to help advance those policies.

Bechara Choucair, MD

“CityHealth embodies the de Beaumont Foundation’s core belief that policy is one of the most powerful tools to improve health,” said Brian C. Castrucci, the Foundation’s CEO. “We’re excited to have Kaiser Permanente join us in this effort to transform health in cities across the country.” CityHealth is an example of the Foundation’s focus on building cross-sector partnerships and offering practical tools and data to improve public health.

Bechara Choucair, MD, Senior Vice President and Chief Community Health Officer at Kaiser Permanente, said, “We share the de Beaumont Foundation’s belief that the power of local policy is one of the most promising and effective strategies for transforming health in America, and we are pleased to join them in this important work. The CityHealth initiative provides mayors and other community leaders an opportunity to harness some of that transformational power to improve health, drive down health care costs, and save lives.”

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